Jemima Kirke Paints a Pretty Picture on 'Girls'

Her father is Simon Kirke, the drummer from Bad Company. She said, though, her parents were “definitely not famous enough for it to affect my childhood one way or the other.”

Jemima Kirke attended the Rhode Island School of Design and earned her B.F.A. She considers herself more of a painter than an actress.

As to her wild child past, she said, “That way of life stopped working for me really quickly. Some people know how to balance things, at least enough to be able to continue messing around, but I didn’t. I was very all-or-nothing about it, and you burn out really quickly if you keep going that way.” She added later, “I was just like, ‘I’m over this shit. That was hell.’ So I quickly settled down.”

Jemima Kirke met Lena Dunham at St. Ann’s High School in Brooklyn Heights and agreed to help Lena out on the film “Tiny Furniture.” Jemima never had any intention of acting, and she and Lena have been friends since they were 13. Lena actually let Jemima tattoo her. “I have a handful of tattoos that I really want to put on people that I can't find anyone to let me give them to. Lena let me do one of them, which is like a Yorkshire terrier on her ribcage.”

As for her character on the show "Girls" and the resemblance to Jemima in real life, she said, “Not so much. Maybe aspects of who I used to act like. The way I used to behave, some of my behaviors are similar.” She added in a separate interview, “Lena’s pitched story lines from my own life.”

About female friendships, she said, “A woman will always be my best friend. I’ll never have a best friend who is a man. It just doesn’t work that way.”

Jemima Kirke said about her body, “It’s not, like necessarily…aspirational. You know what I mean? It’s got flaws and it’s also got some nice things about it. It’s average and it’s also not so average it’s kind of weird.”

She is the mother of two children, Memphis Kirke Mosberg and Rafella Israel Mosberg. Jemima Kirke resides in East Hampton, New York.